I'm wondering- how long has the trend toward more fantasy writers rather than sci-fi writers writing for the EU, been going on?

Basically since Del Rey took the contract from Bantam.

And it's not just a fantasy vs. science fiction thing. It is a move, especially in the main novel timeline (Del Rey's Clone Wars and Dark Times era material has a more diverse author base) it is a move towards a specific group of writers with a shared history coming out of D&D shared world fiction. FotJ is the most obvious: all three authors, Allston, Denning, and Golden worked in D&D publishing under TSR in the 1990s. As a result there has been a conversion, one that began in the NJO to remake Star Was as something like Forgotten Realms with lightsabers.

More than that, they as a group try to shoehorn the entire GFFA into a single book or a single series. The Fist Movie showed us that there was a Big Galaxy, but only told us the story of a few people.

Many of the new generation of books seem to be compeating to use the more planets, bigger casts, more jedi badassness, and more storylines than the previous series, and at best they achive mediocricy.

Part of what I liked about the first movies, and with the early EU was that when you picked up a book or a Trillogy, you go 1 story. Maybe there was a couple character arcs, but they all moved along the same path. LotF seemed to be 3 or 4 books stuffed and stretched into 9. If they had taken each story line and given each to a single author to pop out a trilogy or 2 they could have been fantastic stories, rather than decent entertainment.

The best thing the EU could do for the Gallactic Alliance would be to simply ignore it for awhile. Go off, and produce a few adventure stories, let Allana grow up for a bit, the the Jedi Order settle down on their new planet or ship or what ever they do to them. They don't need to show us how the Alliance moves into a peaceful era.. just tell us that the Senate is working well, the Chancallors as Swell Being, and they are doing their governmenty things.

All our beloved characters can still have adventures. Lets see some of the new Jedi go after Pirates. Infiltrate Black Sun Type organizations.

Maybe even focus on the Remenant for a while, and show us how the Imperial Knights are created with out some Galaxy Shattering Event.

After all, we are all in this thread because the Empire is the best! They have the best toys, the best troops, the best armor!

But to answer the question in the OP.....

I think that I like the Empire and The Criminal Elements in the GFFA the best simply because they have the most development and diversity. I want to see the non force sensatives kicking ass again, and in the EU, for the most part it's been the Empire and the Underworld Gangs that have had the best Non Force guys. (X-Wing Series being the big exeption to that rule!)

Politically, I am unconvinced that democracy is at all democratic with the enormous populations and tremendous variety of planets and societies present in Star Wars, so the normal platitudes about freedom used to promote the Republic mean nothing to me. When my only choices are between democratic tyranny and despotic tyranny, I choose the latter because there is no hypocrisy in it. Democratic governance is a pyramidal order, which with so many quadrillions of citizens results in a leadership few in number called upon to represent far more divers desires than can possibly be compatible within one administration. Compromise, you see, is like a stick of wood: it can bend only so far before it breaks and ceases to be one stick. Despotism at least makes no pretense of pleasing all sides. With this population level it is an honest tyranny.